I am writing a library that will handle storing and serializing user-defined types. The user-defined types are required to be themselves serializable. However the library uses templates to create containers of user types. These containers are then serialized through a base class pointer. I don't know how to export the container types to boost::serialization through the templates. The only way I can do it is to force the user of the library to BOOST_CLASS_EXPORT_GUID() every container type. I've tried unpacking the macro by looking at boost/serialization/export.hpp, but it is slightly complex... Is there a way to export a class as part of the template instantiation? Or another way to write the library to easily serialize containers of user-defined types? Thanks -v Example code: #include <iostream> #include <vector> #include #include #include #include #include #include ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// // Example code that would reside in the library ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// struct type_container_base { private: virtual void make_abstract() const {} friend class ::boost::serialization::access; template <typename ARCHIVE> void serialize(ARCHIVE &, const unsigned int) {} }; BOOST_SERIALIZATION_ASSUME_ABSTRACT(type_container_base) template <typename USER_TYPE> struct type_container : type_container_base { void add(const USER_TYPE& d) { _vector.push_back(d); } private: std::vector _vector; friend class ::boost::serialization::access; template <typename ARCHIVE> void serialize(ARCHIVE & ar, const unsigned int) { ar & ::boost::serialization::base_object(*this); ar & _vector; } }; ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// // Example user code that would use the library ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// struct user_type { user_type(int i) : _val(i) {} private: int _val; friend class ::boost::serialization::access; template <typename ARCHIVE> void serialize(ARCHIVE & ar, const unsigned int) { ar & _val; } }; // *** Is there a better way than forcing the user to do this for every // *** user_type they want to use with the library? BOOST_CLASS_EXPORT_GUID(type_container, "type_container") int main() { std::vector containers; type_container* tc = new type_container(); tc->add(user_type(7)); tc->add(user_type(42)); tc->add(user_type(1776)); containers.push_back(tc); { boost::archive::text_oarchive ar(std::cout); const std::size_t size = containers.size(); ar << size; BOOST_FOREACH(type_container_base* p, containers) ar << p; } return 0; }